


bells will be ringing

by strigastrigastriga (krasnyj)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Christmas, Christmas Music, Eggnog, Light Angst, M/M, Not dealing, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Reminiscing, Sam Wilson is a champion, Slow Burn, War is hell, bing crosby - Freeform, bruce is making breakfast, bucky is a sasshole, cheeky winking, ho ho HO, Я не говорю по-русски
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-10
Updated: 2015-12-10
Packaged: 2018-05-05 22:01:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5391911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/krasnyj/pseuds/strigastrigastriga
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>so Bucky's back, but only sort of. Steve could handle it better if the constant Christmas music weren't driving him bonkers. (that's an excuse.) seems like they're both just trying to find the way home</p>
            </blockquote>





	bells will be ringing

**Author's Note:**

> I've never finished a piece of fiction before! judge me gently, friends.
> 
> I happened to already be listening to the Christmas stations on Pandora when I saw the Civil War trailer, so I was thinking about the influence WWII had on Christmas (music, traditions) and about Captain America being a soldier during that era, so I wanted to write about it. then this happened! 
> 
> credits & translations, etc. at the end

_I’ll be home for Christmas_

_If only in my dreams_

⎯⎯⎯⎯

One time, when he wakes up, he’s looking at Steve. His head is full of smoke, his thoughts are the shadows of clouds on the bottom of a clear river. He is awake, but still dreaming.

When he wants to speak, his words are a jumbled slur. He’s speaking another language, one he doesn’t know. He’s facing a mirror and there is a line of blood running from his nose down to his chin. He can’t lift his arm. He can see his arm in the mirror, but he can’t make it move. He looks at his other arm, the one that isn’t silver, and wills it to move.

He smears the blood across his face.

⎯⎯⎯⎯

They call folks from his time “the Greatest Generation.”

He’s visiting a VA on the West Coast and a WWII veteran who’s turning one hundred shakes his hand vigorously, then launches into a story about serving with MacArthur. “His son’s in one of these buildings,” the man says, voice still rich and brassy. He’s going to get a letter signed by the president because he’s turning one hundred. He doesn’t seem really to recognize Steve, maybe because Captain America chose to forego the uniform today. Sam is standing off to the side, wearing his VA badge and drinking coffee out of a little styrofoam cup. Steve happens to look over and catch him mid-sip, so all Sam can do is raise his eyebrows. 

The man sent his son to Vietnam. It’s beyond Steve’s ken, the draft and the protests and signs about baby-killers. Napalm. My Lai. Nerves regrow at the rate of, what, an inch or only half an inch a month? Vietnam: his son would have gone to Canada, but your country is like your family; you have to protect it. So his son died in Vietnam and now he’s here in this hospital, talking about it with a stranger, forty years later.

All the cake is distributed (sugar-free cupcakes for the guys with dietary restrictions, doesn’t that sound delightful?) and then while they’re all eating, the staff sing happy birthday, and this guy – who’s almost the same age as Steve, you know, technically, sort of – joins in, and they take pictures and Steve is in some of them. He knows that he’s disappointed them by not showing up in his Captain America costume, but he feels absurd sitting in the costume in a car with Sam, who’s completely civilian for this trip. And it’s winter, but it’s hot in California. He feels petulant, infantile, but he doesn’t let that surface; he just isn’t wearing the costume.

By the way, he wouldn’t say no to a letter signed by the president when he turns one hundred. He shook hands with MacArthur and Eisenhower, when they called Ike “Supreme Commander,” and Field Marshal Montgomery managed to clap him on the shoulder right in time for a photograph. They’re both grinning, and it looks genuine. Monty made some cheeky comments in the article that went along with the photo, later, which made Patton practically explode, but it didn’t bother Steve. It’s hard for Steve to say what’s bothering him now.

In the Captain America comics, Watergate upsets him so much that he adopts a new identity. Not that anyone really needs to know, but most of Steve’s information about Nixon comes from “Futurama,” which Clint and Tony like to watch. Steve’s still figuring out whether he can learn to laugh at the things that amuse people today. They’ve introduced him to “The Walking Dead” and “Game of Thrones” and Facebook, given him the whole cultural lowdown, and he kind of wishes – some small, wormlike little inner part of him, wishes that someone wiped him clean, like Bucky, so he could start over as someone else, a blank slate.

The thought irritates him, knowing that it even exists in himself, because Bucky’s _not_ a blank slate. He’s James Buchanan Barnes. They made a good man into an experiment, a ghost.

He’s probably sitting on one of Tony’s expensive barstools, staring out a window at the city hundreds of feet below and letting a cup of coffee get cold in his hands, right now, right as Steve and Sam get back on the road. They’re returning their rental car on the way to the airport and then flying commercial, economy, back to New York. They’re going to stay at JFK an extra hour or two to welcome an Honor Flight, and then they’re going to go back to the Tower.

Or Bucky might be sparring with the Black Widow, or watching Banner work. Bruce likes Bucky. Sometimes Steve sits with them, but his presence is somehow obtrusive, louder – even when he’s not speaking – than Bucky’s, who leans against things with his arms folded and doesn’t move, not for hours. Steve imagines this stillness came in handy for the Winter Soldier’s work as a sniper, and he doesn’t like that about himself either. Well, Bucky was a good shot, too.

Sam doesn’t mind paying money to watch movies on the flight, although he does heckle Steve about getting better seats next time. Out of their gear, they’re just guys; Steve doesn’t mind traveling like any other guy, and he won’t let the government pay for these trips. There’s a kid who stands up to look over the back of his seat at Steve, eyes wide, but the kid’s mother makes him sit back down and buckle up, and Steve thinks later that he could have made that kid’s day or week or year or who even fucking knows, if he’d just signed something and said something nice to the kid.

He thinks, who am I when I’m not at home?

⎯⎯⎯⎯

Bucky dreams. He’s usually dreaming. He’d rather not, but no one asked him.

They are children. Steve is a child, drawing a picture. The picture is of Bucky, with his thumbs in someone’s eye sockets. “My mom doesn’t want you to be around me,” Steve says. This is a dream. This is not a memory. This is a dream. “Go away,” Steve says. Bucky tries to speak, but when he opens his mouth, all of his teeth fall out.

Sometimes he wakes up, and he doesn’t like that any better.

⎯⎯⎯⎯

_No more let sins and sorrows grow_

_Nor thorns infest the ground_

⎯⎯⎯⎯

When they get back to the tower, Sam goes “Sheeeeit,” appreciatively, because Tony’s spent about a million dollars decking it out for Christmas. There’s a giant (real) tree in the lobby, covered in red, white, and blue ornaments and tinsel and lights. There’s tinsel and holly and ivy and Christmas music playing throughout the building. There are lights and garlands and candy canes and beverage dispensers with hot cocoa and apple cider. Steve is tempted to tell Tony go balls deep, get a little ice rink in here, hire some actors, set up a stage, do “A Christmas Carol” shows and concerts, except that he’s afraid that Tony would actually run with it.

He was mostly right about Bucky, who _is_ sitting with a cup of coffee by the window, but Steve could not possibly have imagined on his own that Bucky would be wearing a Santa hat.

“Very seasonal,” Sam says, putting one hand on Bucky’s shoulder as he leans past him to pull a mug out of the cabinet, and then he’s pouring himself a fresh cup of coffee.

“Mr. Stark gave it to me,” Bucky says. Sam is Mr. Wilson, and Steve is “Captain.” In fact, Bucky nods his head at Steve now and says, “Captain.”

“Bucky,” Steve says, absentmindedly. There’s no visible reaction, but Steve knows that the nickname makes the Winter Soldier deeply uncomfortable. He’s subdued, docile; he didn’t make a fuss when they took away his guns and knives and small explosives. Steve doesn’t like to think that it’s an act; he wants to believe that Bucky is… thawing, is working his way to peace.

He’s passively resistant to therapy, Steve has been told – polite, courteous, and he just doesn’t talk much, not with anyone. He’ll obey simple commands, like pass me the salt or take your shoes off at the door. He let Tony take him to an expensive tailor and got measured for a lot of nice suits that he never wears; he prefers simple things, wears a lot of black. Never goes out, anyway.

Fury was deeply, deeply unhappy about it in the beginning, but time passes and still, so far, nothing’s happened. Steve has spent _a lot_ of time talking at him, making little sketches – which Bucky accepts, sure, and says something like “that’s nice” or “thank you” – but he just blinks when Steve starts reminiscing, and he doesn’t make jokes or laugh, and one time when Steve kind of lost his cool and threw a glass at the wall, Bucky recoiled and cringed all through Steve’s shamed, stuttering apology.

So, Steve, lately, has been leaving him alone, mostly.

Natasha briefs them on triggers, Red Room policies, Signs That You Might Be Talking to an Agent of Hydra. She tells Steve that she doesn’t know what it’s like to have a fully-formed identity overwritten with Hydra programming; the Red Room taught her how to be, and she’s only now learning who she is when she has a choice. She certainly seems to have a bit of a soft spot for their new friend, and he shot her. Twice. So why, _why_ is it that when Steve looks at someone he loves, all he sees in his head is the two of them beating each other almost to death?

On the speakers, Bing Crosby’s crooning, “ _I’ll be home for Christmas, you can plan on me._ ”

Steve thinks Bucky looks stupid in the hat and he wants to punch Tony in the throat for making his friend into a joke. Maybe Sam can sense something, because he sets his cup down extra loud and asks if Steve wants to order pizza.

Bing Crosby did USO shows. Captain America was asked to share the stage with him, once, for Christmas, pulling him away from the Howling Commandos; he’d been standing by Bucky – he’d asked Bucky to be there, of course. And Bucky was standing by Steve and smoking when “White Christmas” was requested. Bucky got this fierce look on his face, like he was probably trying to hold back tears, and Steve had reached out to put his hand on Bucky’s shoulder or something and that fierce look was fixed right on him and Bucky’d caught Steve’s hand midair, and their fingers were laced together, and he’d said – well, he’d opened his mouth, there was something he wanted to say, but he didn’t say it.

And then Steve had to go on stage with a line of beautiful women wearing red and green dresses and they did high kicks and the crowd got to whistle and cheer and that was a relief, kind of, after feeling so raw. Sometimes that was who Captain America had to be to best serve the people, and didn’t those boys deserve a good show? Some of them might never see another Christmas or America again, after all, and they knew it. But Bucky wasn’t there when they finished – and usually Bucky loved the high kicks – so Steve didn’t have a chance to ask what he’d been about to say, and then they had to keep moving, and there was always something else, and then they were high above the earth, and he couldn’t hold on, and it was terribly cold –

He remembers the feeling of their fingers laced together and wonders if the Winter Soldier knows what Bucky was going to say that day.

 _I’ll be home for Christmas, you can count on me_.

Steve realizes he’s doing that thing where he gets stuck in the past. Bucky’s back to looking out the window and Sam’s already on the phone, ordering pizza. When he’s done, Steve apologizes for drifting off and Sam makes excuses for him about jet lag and time zones. Bucky’s watching them, but he doesn’t speak until Sam asks if he has any plans for Christmas.

“No,” Bucky says.

“You, Steve?” Sam asks. “You guys got any traditions?”

Steve looks at Bucky and shrugs. It’s awkward for a minute, but then Sam cracks open a beer and gets everyone to sit on the couch and pick something to watch on Netflix – Sam’s been re-watching “The Wire,” but it’s too gritty for Steve’s taste, so they end up watching “The IT Crowd” again, which Steve likes to think is kind of educational. The pizza shows up and Sam talks about football, which Steve is starting to get really into. Bucky doesn’t finish even one slice of pizza, but the TV show actually makes him laugh. He looks embarrassed.

When they’re done eating pizza, Steve says “Я наелся,” which he thinks means “I’m full,” because he’s trying to learn a little Russian for Bucky and so that he can understand some of the conversations that Bucky and Natasha have. Bucky rewards him with a gentle smile.

“Me too,” Bucky says. “Thank you for dinner.” He just sat there, drinking coffee.

“Thanks for your company, man,” Sam says, easily, not bothered by the Russian or the Santa hat or the stupid music. Steve doesn’t want to say it, exactly, but he hopes Sam knows he’s a true champion.

Later, when his dinner’s had a chance to settle, Steve goes for a run. It’s snowing, and bitterly cold, and people look at him like he’s absolutely bananas out of his mind, but none of that bothers him. He likes the way that the cold air burns his lungs and the way that lights reflect on the wet streets. Bucky’s following him, and he’s still not sure whether or not he’s supposed to notice.

⎯⎯⎯⎯

He doesn’t want to speak. Steve is dead; Steve is a ghost. When he turns his head, colors blur in long trails, neon in slow exposure. Someone is whispering in Russian and it makes his teeth ache. He is lying down. He is falling.

How can you be dead and also alive at the same time?

⎯⎯⎯⎯

Steve is having a dream about the Winter Soldier, and just as he’s thrashing in the grasp of that cold arm, fingers tight on his throat, his feet leaving the ground, the same arm is pressing down on his shoulder and it’s dark and he’s disoriented, half-awake, furious and frightened at the same time.

“Captain,” Bucky says, and he shifts so that he is crouched on his haunches, no longer touching Steve. “Is bad dream?” He sounds like he’s really Russian and speaking a second language. He also looks very sleepy, which is cute, which kind of disgruntles Steve.

Steve sits up, the sheet tangled around his legs. He can still feel fingers around his throat and he runs his hands through his hair, not sure what to say. He didn’t ask for Bucky to be placed in an adjoining suite, but that’s what Tony did, so he’s heard Bucky having bad dreams, too. The only time that he tried to do anything about it, Bucky gave him a black eye and threw him to the ground before either of them knew what was happening, and one of Bucky’s hands was wrapped around a fistful of Steve’s shirt and the other was raised to punch him in the face before Steve could gasp out, “It’s me, Buck, it’s me, it’s me, I thought you were having a nightmare,” and the Winter Soldier looked down at him, eyes blank, mouth compressed, and then the man let out a heavy, rattling sigh, as if he wanted to empty all of the air out of his lungs, and he sort of crumpled: still crouched on top of Steve, but curling into himself, and Steve lay there on the ground thinking _What would Captain America do?_

Well, here is James Buchanan Barnes, eyes shining in the darkness. He’s not wearing a t-shirt, and Steve finds himself thinking it’s odd that someone with a metal arm can have chest hair. The thought itself is odd; he’s not very awake. Maybe he’s trying not to think about all of the scars.

“Yes, it was a bad dream,” he says, and his throat is dry, so his voice comes out kind of rough. Bucky offers to get some water, and while he’s gone, Steve switches the lamp by his bed on.

When Bucky comes back, the simple task of passing Steve a glass occurs, inexplicably, in slow motion, with Bucky’s fingers lingering against Steve’s. Feeling, perhaps, awkward, still half-asleep, Bucky begins talking. “When I can’t sleep I tell myself I’m going to get up. I think, ‘In a moment, I will get to my feet.’ I tell myself that. I think, ‘There is so much to do. In a moment, I will get to my feet.’ I don’t know why. Do you?” 

“I have no idea,” Steve says. “I’m sorry, I just don’t know where that would come from.”

“I lie there and convince myself that I will get up, and then I fall asleep.” Bucky muses. “I think I am defective.”

Sometimes Steve gets this weird impulse to hug Bucky, like if he holds him tightly enough somehow things will get better. He says, “C’mere, you,” and gives Bucky just a gentle hug.

“Oh,” Bucky says.

“Everybody’s got their little things,” Steve says, sitting back. “I’m sure I do. And I guess I want to know more about the things that make you, you? I used to think I knew everything.”

He thinks about the two of them as kids, before anyone could have imagined all of the things that have happened since. He was sure he was going to die before he hit fifteen. He might have, without Bucky there to look out for him. He doesn’t know how to convey that, now. He has no idea what else to say. You: you were my home. I have missed you so.

Bucky clenches and unclenches his metal hand. “I am different now,” he says. “Some things, better not to know.” He puts out his standard hand abruptly to shake, which Steve does, and he’s disgruntled again. “Sleep well, Captain,” Bucky says.

Steve can’t sleep after he turns the light out. He’s trying to remember their old familiar rhythm, how it felt when they fell into conversation, what they talked about. For some reason, he’s having a hard time remembering anything they ever said to one another. They were born before pop-up toasters, before movies with sound, before penicillin and electric razors. He remembers facts; he remembers watching his first movie in a modern theater and not understanding the Tupac hologram, now. He knows that Bucky was a child once and that they went to war together. Not together: he always had to run to catch up to Bucky’s long strides. But then he made it there, there when everyone else had already left Sergeant Barnes to die. 

The funny thing is, funny being the wrong word, that Sam is the one who found the Winter Soldier. Maybe ‘curious’ and ‘very coincidental’ is the sentiment Steve is looking for. Anyway, Sam does this thing with a veteran group where they go out and try to convince homeless veterans to come to the VA or to get care at shelters, and Sam happened upon Bucky while Steve was still trying to figure out where to look. Several days’ growth of beard instead of his mask, a baseball cap pulled down low to hide his eyes, rich with the fragrance of the unwashed human body: James Buchanan Barnes. He’d looked at Sam with blank eyes; he’d had a brochure from the Captain America exhibit.

“I don’t have a mission,” he’d said, almost conversationally, handcuffed, looking at Steve across a table in the room where Tony’s security guy, Happy, questions punks with skateboards (not allowed) and loiterers. “I am no one at all today.”

Fury wasn’t sure what to do with him, if anything – he literally threw up his hands in a discussion about the layers upon layers of responsibility and betrayal, international espionage and assassination, the torture, Sergeant Barnes’s history as a hero, America’s delicate political dance with Russia, and so on and so forth. Tony suggested bringing the Winter Soldier into the field, just to see, and Bucky sat there silently, watching Steve. Tony is older than Howard Stark was when Steve saw him last, right? Steve felt like a buffoon during all of those conversations, hesitant, uncertain. Of course he believes that Bucky is innocent, but does he want to go out in the field? What he’s capable of? He doesn’t know the Winter Soldier, he doesn’t know who his best friend has become.

Impulsively, he gets up and goes to the door between their rooms. Opening it slightly doesn’t startle Bucky into wakefulness. He seems to be deeply asleep, and his expression is untroubled, peaceful. Steve shuts the door and returns to his bed, finally drifting off before the sun begins to rise.

⎯⎯⎯⎯ 

_I’m dreaming of a white Christmas_

_Just like the ones I used to know._

⎯⎯⎯⎯

“I have tickets,” Tony says. It’s a Saturday morning. Bruce is making breakfast frittatas for Steve, Natasha, and Bucky. Thor is away, Clint is with his family, and Pepper probably had breakfast three hours ago. Frankly, Steve is surprised that Natasha is around. He doesn’t know exactly what she does or where she goes most of the time, and it’s none of his business, but he wonders if she’s tired of having to take the time to construct and maintain her covers. He wouldn’t know if he was coming or going, if he had to keep up with five or six of himself.

Bruce cleaned and chopped fresh spinach for Natasha’s breakfast; Steve doesn’t care for the stuff. He will have eggs and cheese, pieces of ham, onion, and the few bits of little green things that Bruce is able to sneak in. He’s eating cereal and a muffin to tide him over. Beside him, Bucky pores over the daily newspaper. His face doesn’t change, but sometimes he slides a finger along what he’s reading – whether to underscore or keep his place, Steve couldn’t say.

 “Tickets?” Bruce inquires, when it’s obvious that Tony’s not going to elaborate on his own.

“Theater,” Tony says, with jazz hands. Immediately serious, he looks to Natasha: “What do you think about the Moscow Ballet?”

“I prefer Balanchine’s choreography,” she says dryly, stirring in the milk and sugar she’s just added to her coffee.

“Okay, I’ve got those tickets, too,” he says. “I own the building. Several buildings. I could own a dance company. I don’t, but I could.”

When Natasha expresses an actual interest in going, Tony immediately says, “There’s conditions, Red.” He takes a few pieces of cereal out of the box of Frosted Mini-Wheats and a sip of Steve’s orange juice, which Steve doesn’t even mind by now. “Pepper doesn’t think I’m suitable company for this kind of evening. She’s probably right, I’ll just go ahead and get that out there. So I’m asking you to go, enjoy the show, and make sure that there’s no murder or kidnapping. Make some conversation, but not so much that she doesn’t get to see the show, and try not sweep her off her feet. Pep’s work gets sloppy when she has a crush. Keep that between us, Jarvis. And make sure she’s safe, how does that sound?”

“Sounds like you’re asking for a lot, Stark.” Natasha tilts her head, unable to keep a corner of her mouth from quirking up. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Excellent. Take my card, buy a nice dress and some shoes, maybe a pantsuit with rhinestones, some matching denim, little booties with fringe, I mean, hey, I don’t know exactly what’s hot with the kids these days. Heck, buy the company, if you think they’re a good investment. 

“What’s going on, Tony?” Steve asks.

“I,” Tony says, holding his hands up, “am aflame with the spirit of the season." 

“Did three ghosts visit you during the night?” Bruce asks, handing Natasha her frittata on some of Tony’s nice china. “Yours is next,” he mouths at Steve.

“Ha ha ha. No, but I’ve been drinking _too much_ eggnog,” Tony says.

“Do you think you’re going overboard?” Steve asks, hopeful that now is the time to nix the music.

“Never,” Tony says with a wink. “Ugly sweater party Thursday, everyone’s invited.”

⎯⎯⎯⎯ 

His brain’s stuck like a record. He keeps saying “hey,” and Captain America turns to look at him and then the moment is starting again, again, again. He can’t remember what conversation this memory is from or what he wants to say next. He wants to hear Steve’s response. He wants to reach out and touch Steve, but he’s always afraid that he’s going to go too far and then Steve will know, and he’ll run like a rabbit and never look back. 

He tells himself, take care of Steve. America might be the enemy, any time he wakes. Мы вас похороним! So he tells himself, don’t hurt Steve. Don’t hurt Steve. Don’t hurt Captain America. Remember his face? Remember the way he looks when he’s drawing, his hands, his eyes, his smile. Don’t hurt Steve. He hopes that if he says it enough, he’ll still remember it when they wake him up next and send him out. Sometimes he remembers that Steve Rogers is dead, and then there’s nothing left to say.

⎯⎯⎯⎯

Tony hired Bucky on as a security guard, which really means that Bucky lives in the tower and sometimes he sits in the lobby, rather than upstairs, and Tony doesn’t charge him rent and he doesn’t have to take vacation days or call in sick, he just leaves. Also, Tony doesn’t pay him, but it’s supposed to give Bucky a sense of purpose? On top of that, Natasha and Bucky have been doing their own covert ops, but not in the secrecy of such deep shadows that Steve doesn’t know. Bucky does, however, have a credit card that’s tied to one of Steve’s accounts. They don’t either of them spend much money, except when Bucky’s flying to Iowa or staying in a hotel in Krasnoyarsk. Natasha has her own resources, and Steve trusts her absolutely – he doesn’t think it’s an elaborate plot to incriminate Captain America – so he has a theory that the Winter Soldier is leaving a little trail, like bread crumbs: here I am, don’t worry.

Maybe he’s just being sentimental. They could always just _invite_ him, after all. 

After breakfast, Bucky and Natasha are gone. They meet for a moment, setting dishes in the sink, and something quiet is said, and Bucky looks over his shoulder and catches Steve’s knowing look. He _winks_. First of all, Tony’s a bad influence. But also, somehow, it seems so natural, like Bucky just being Bucky. Which doesn’t feel natural, it’s weird.

Steve feels like some part of his brain is caught in a loop, that arm making robot noises while Bucky stabs him, he’s breaking both of Bucky’s arms, he’s got Bucky in a choke that blocks both of his carotid arteries, Bucky stabs him, stabs him, stabs him, he’s breaking both of Bucky’s arms, and Bucky won’t stop fighting, he won’t speak, he only digs the knife in deeper. Bucky’s punching him in the face and he’s decided to die, if that’s what it takes. “You’re my mission,” the Winter Soldier says. 

Well, so, winking’s an improvement.

⎯⎯⎯⎯

_So, here we are as in olden days_

_Happy golden days of yore_

_Through the years we all will be together_

_If the fates allow_

⎯⎯⎯⎯

Before the serum, when he weighed 115 pounds soaking wet, he’d pick a fight with a man who probably weighed twice that, or three of them, and they were probably drinking and belligerent, which is also probably why they were being such assholes that Steve wanted to fight them. One time, when he’d only been socked in the gut before Bucky punched the guy in the jaw, breaking it and ending that sad little fight, they hoofed it a few blocks closer to home, so Steve had to wait for himself, and then he said, “Why don’t you let me fight my own battles?”

Bucky cracked his knuckles and shrugged, an almost helpless gesture. “I’m not gonna watch you get beat all to shit. I’m built to fight, you ain’t. You know what’s what, you pick good fights, and I finish ‘em. That’s teamwork.” Something like that. He’d said something like that.

And Steve said something like, “Someday I’m going to pick the wrong fight, and you’ll get hurt because I’m out cold, where’s the teamwork?” It was old ground; when they’d been there before, Bucky taught Steve which knuckles to hit with and where to put his thumbs and how to protect his face, just the basics, but Steve couldn’t cajole Bucky into actually sparring. If he pushed hard enough, Bucky would say: you already get into enough fights, or, don’t you know you can count on me?, and Steve knew what that meant, really: Steve, I can’t teach you how to win a fight. It wasn’t his fault he’d get asthma from looking wrong at a bicycle.

He’d tried to push it once when they’d been drinking, and Bucky stabbed him, stabbed him in the shoulder, and his arm was whirring — no. Wrong.

They’d been drinking, and while they were walking home Steve got a little hop and a skip in his step and an itch, and he kept pestering Bucky about it, getting more and more mad, really mad, until Bucky finally said, “Okay, hit me.” And he stopped and turned to face Steve, so abrupt that Steve had to spin around (a few times too many), and retrace his steps, and he took a big wind up and plowed his fist right into Bucky’s jaw, something he’d seen Bucky do a hundred times, and it drove Bucky’s head to the side, but Bucky just kind of nodded, and said, “Okay, again.”

Which made Steve so brilliantly mad, because that’s not at all how you have a fight, not with someone you respect. So he was going to really hit Bucky the second time, and maybe finally Bucky would realize that Steve was built to fight, too, but instead, Bucky caught Steve’s fist, just a fraction of an inch away from his face, and then James Buchanan Barnes brushed his lips against Steve’s knuckles in, unmistakably, a kiss. It was summer, and still hot, though it was night, and humid. They were looking at one another, and Steve’s mouth was dry. And then Bucky said, “Steve, there’s other ways to fight. You don’t always win just because you hurt the other guy worse.”

“Well, sure… yeah, well, that’s fighting dirty,” Steve said, finally, holding his hand out in front of him, fingers splayed. It looked like a hand that hadn’t ever had anything happen to it. He wasn’t sure if he couldn’t think or speak because he was so mad – he wasn’t sure of anything at all, just then. 

He wonders, now, if the Winter Soldier remembers moments like that, without context. He’s afraid that the Winter Soldier could use these fragments to make up stories, to lie, to survive, to what end? And Steve will choose to believe a lie so that he doesn’t have to let go of Bucky, when really Bucky is already gone. He thinks: I was just a kid. He thinks about winning, and saving millions of lives, and beating Bucky into submission, and deciding to die. He keeps trying, and he hasn’t died yet. He thinks: why am I thinking about this?

He wonders how Bucky really felt when Captain America showed up in Europe and he realizes that he’s probably never going to know.

⎯⎯⎯⎯

_O’er all the weary world;_

_Above its sad and lowly plains_

_Two thousand years of wrong;_

_And man, at war with man_

⎯⎯⎯⎯

Steve nixes a swimsuit shoot in Miami, visits a girl with leukemia in Newark, reads children’s books in a few elementary school classrooms, pushes wheelchairs at the VA, goes to the New York Aquarium with Bruce, and watches Tony play the beta for a video game he’s got a team developing (it is, of course, about Iron Man).

When he’s by himself, his thoughts keep turning to the past, which is probably why he’s been running himself into the ground. He tries to sketch his mother, but he can’t get her face right. He goes for a run. He reads op-eds about Christmas and commercialism and feels old. He goes shopping for presents and hopes that Pepper will help him wrap them.

He goes to the movies with Sam and he thinks how excited audiences were in 1896 about _Train Pulling into a Station_ , fifty brief seconds of exactly that. He thinks about only knowing that France or Japan exist, theoretically, and then seeing photographs for the first time, films in black and white, and then with sound and color, and in a television in your own home, and now, holding a phone in your hand that takes professional-quality pictures and can make video calls to anywhere in the world. He feels _old_. And kind of boring, maybe.

Sam says, “I’m sure Barnes will make it back safe and sound, soon.”

To which Steve says, “What?”

“You were spacing out, bro,” Sam says.

They’re standing in front of a fountain in the mall; Steve doesn’t remember walking there. There’s a holiday area set up for kids, a little indoor ice rink and a line leading up to a big throne where Santa can sit and listen to kids' wishes, and of course there’s Christmas music.

“I was thinking about time. Technology. I can’t keep up with it,” Steve says. “The night before Bucky shipped out, before I had the serum, we went to this fair, ‘see the future,’ you know. Howard Stark had a car that levitated. Sort of. I wasn’t thinking about anything but going to war, then.” He doesn’t know what he’s trying to tell Sam, so he stops talking. “Here I am,” he finally says. “It’s the future.”

⎯⎯⎯⎯

The mission is to kill. He will execute the mission. Everything is simple until he is in a dialogue with the target. He’s shaken. No one but his handlers should know him. Is this man actually the target? As the man addresses him by a _name,_ and he’s got a strange impression that he’s seen the man drawing, smiling. He’s confused, distraught. He has never failed, not once. He has never mistaken someone else for a target. He’s _feeling_ , which is inefficient and frightening, which is _another feeling_. His brain seems to be full of shards of glass.

When they take him back to do a wipe, he’s – sad. He wants to remember that man’s smile. No one smiles at him.

He’s not distracted or uncertain when they meet next. The man has to complete his own mission, which the Asset can understand and respect, even though it means he got choked out and his metal arm isn’t working. That will not stop him. The only way to stop him is to kill him, and the man is clearly not prepared for that. He is angry, but he doesn’t understand it. Speaking English makes his throat feel raw. He hits the man who says “you’re my friend,” because the Winter Soldier has no friends.

He pulls the man out of the river because there’s static in his brain, like a radio transmission from that stubborn bastard, Barnes. “Steve Rogers. Don’t hurt Captain America.” Fine, I won’t.

“Это пиздец,” he mutters, dragging the body onto the bank of the river. All of his comm devices are dead. He doesn’t want to go back, and Barnes doesn’t, and he doesn’t know what to do now that he’s deliberately fucked up a mission, and there isn’t even a back to go to. So it’s not exactly a choice, but he doesn’t go back.

He’s calmed down when they find him. He’s accepted that he has absolutely no idea how to function, and he just wants someone to tell him: do this. Go there. Do that. Come back. Keeping an eye on Captain America feels like a mission, he thinks. He feels good when he’s got eyes on the Captain. He feels less good when the Captain engages him, because then he doesn’t understand what he’s supposed to accomplish. Visions crowd his brain. He wants, he realizes. _He_ wants.

He’s becoming weak. The other traitor, Natalia, she understands. When they look for Hydra, it’s very simple again. The only problem, he knows, is that this is who he is, and this is not who Captain America wants.

⎯⎯⎯⎯

The Christmas music is still going strong in the Tower (Steve knows all the stations now, classic and jazz and pop and indie and country and rock and instrumental, Hannukah songs, songs in Spanish, the entire narration of “The Grinch,” the blues); Steve’s seriously thinking about finding an apartment of his own or staying in a hotel for a few days. He’s been getting out more when he doesn’t have something specific scheduled, so that’s probably good? He’s in an art gallery in Brooklyn, in a spacious building that used to be a factory, when Bucky falls in step beside him.

“How did you know I was here?” he asks without thinking.

“How do I ever find you?”

Steve bites back something along the lines of that’s what I’m asking and says, instead, “It’s good to see you, Buck.” Pale, with bags under his eyes, and maybe he’s lost weight, but alive. He’s not meeting Steve’s gaze, staring instead at the art like he’s hungry to buy something. Steve tries again, “Want to get outta here, grab some lunch?”

“Brooklyn’s changed, hasn’t it?”

“It has,” he agrees, and he wants to talk to someone who knows, firsthand, what it used to be, there’s so much he could say, so many things he’s noticed and places that are gone and people that he remembers, so many memories of them that he’s positively adrift, but Bucky’s muscles are all tense, he’s rigid, ready to fend off an attack, and Steve is afraid that he’s the reason Bucky’s on edge.

“I’m being tailed,” Bucky says, as if he just read Steve’s mind. “I didn’t mean to – to bring trouble to you. I’ll handle it. I just wanted to see you.”

Steve tries to look around surreptitiously. He usually notices that kind of thing (he’s had a few run-ins with paparazzi, for starters), and he’s actually felt more alone this afternoon than he has in a while.

“Maybe we can slip away, and then we won’t have to handle it,” Steve says. 

Bucky hums quietly, says something in Russian under his breath, and then finally looks at Steve and says, “You call the shots, Captain.”

Oh, it’s still strange to look down at Bucky. They stand, facing one another for a moment, and then Steve pulls his mittens on (in the red white and green stripes of the Italian flag, with snowflakes and little reindeer, knitted by an ancient Italian woman who gave them to Steve along with a pat on the ass during a hospital visit) and they go out into the bitter cold. When Steve makes as if to hail a taxi, Bucky pinches the fabric of his coat to pull him back on the sidewalk. Bucky has his flesh-and-bone hand in the pocket of his bomber jacket. He’s not wearing the Santa hat. The tip of his nose and cheeks are already rosy from the biting wind.

They make a little trail together through the snow that’s fallen since the sidewalk was last shoveled and eventually they happen to walk past a little diner at the same time as someone’s leaving, sending a blast of delicious warm air out onto the street. Bucky catches the door to hold it open for Steve. (Who’s calling the shots?) 

Most of the tables are full, and the air is alive with diners’ chatter, forks and knives clinking against plates, glasses being set down, the scent of bacon and maple syrup. There’s a glass display case that’s full of pie, and Steve thinks before they leave he’ll get some to take back to the Tower. He’s already got high expectations of this place. 

They sit, and their waitress comes over with her pencil tucked behind her ear and a handful of big, laminated menus. There are coffee cups on the table already, presumably clean, and when they both say yes to coffee, she flips the cups right side up and pours. “You need some time?” she asks, and Steve notices that she’s chewing gum and her nametag says Nora. He nods and she smiles. He doesn’t think that anyone in the restaurant has picked him out as Captain America. It might be the mittens. He didn’t get the sense that there was anyone after them outside, either.

“We’ve been tracking down some of the agencies that contracted the Winter Soldier,” Bucky murmurs, while Steve is still trying to negotiate his way out of his coat. “Natalia helps me. Natasha.”

Steve nods, keeping his eyes on Bucky.

“There is a lot of paper, paper trail,” Bucky says, and it seems to Steve like he’s fumbling for words. “I’m collecting the evidence so that I can be prosecuted. I will give it to you, to Fury...”

“What?” Steve can’t help the incredulous face he makes.

Bucky leans back in his chair and looks away. He glances down at the menu, turns it over, and looks back at Steve. “There are a lot of people who lost… family, children, because of me. The longer I’m awake, the more I remember. I haven’t been sleeping.”

“Because of Hydra,” Steve corrects. “Because of an organization that, that--they are responsible. None of it was your fault, Buck.”

“Yes, sweet Barnes is innocent,” the Winter Soldier says. “But I am not.”

Steve feels like the skin on his face is too tight. He was hungry, but now there’s some other feeling gnawing away at his gut. “I need you to explain that,” he says. “What does that mean?” And when Bucky doesn’t answer immediately, he adds, “Natasha gave me some Russian files. Before we, you know, before we found you. I have no idea what it was actually like, and I know I can never really understand, but I don’t think you can be held responsible for anything that happened. It was, they were, you know, beyond the pale.” Now he’s the one who doesn’t know what to say. All of that is Bucky’s business; Steve doesn’t want to cross this threshold. 

Bucky puts his hand on top of Steve’s. His fingers are cold, still, from being outside. “I am a machine trained to kill." 

Steve thanks the heavens that it’s so noisy in here. His hand feels like it’s full of lead under Bucky’s. He’s not sure if it’s meant to reassure or to keep him pinned. No one is looking at them; no one heard what Bucky just said.

“Yes, you must punish the men who built the machine. But a wolf that has got a taste for human blood, you must put him down. Even though we are just animals without malice, we can’t be allowed to eat the world.”

Nora comes back, takes a look at Steve’s face, and backs away.

“You’re not a machine or an animal,” Steve says, slow to respond, a bit taken aback by the tone of Bucky’s rhetoric. “Any more than that could be said of any human.”

Bucky’s smile is slight. Somehow it makes him look more tired. “I’m just very good at what I do, and I don’t know how to do anything else.”

“I need to eat,” Steve mutters, pulling his hand out from under Bucky’s to pick up the menu. Sergeant Barnes was very good at what he did, too. “You’re not turning anything in to anyone for any anything. You can give me the files and I’ll burn them. You can work with the Avengers. You can do anything you want, but you’re not leaving me again.”

“I would insist that you visit me in prison, if I’m not executed,” Bucky says. He sounds genuinely amused.

“Don’t joke about that.” Steve pauses. “Hell, if you’re tired of the big city and the Avengers, if you don’t want to be around people, we can go somewhere quiet for a while. Get off the grid.”

Bucky is looking at him, watching his mouth as he talks, but it’s like what Steve is saying doesn’t mean anything to him. He doesn’t answer.

Nora comes back over then, pencil out from behind her ear and in her hand, ready to write. Steve orders eggs benedict with cinnamon roll French toast and a turkey burger with coleslaw and fries. Bucky says, “Coffee’s good for me,” so she gives them an odd look, collects the menus, and disappears.

“You need to eat, too,” Steve says. 

“Eating is inefficient,” Bucky mutters, and he just drinks more of his coffee. He looks uncomfortable, sitting there still in his coat, wearing just one glove to hide his metal hand. “I’m trying to do the right thing. I thought you would… I thought it’s what you’d want.”

Steve stirs some cream and sugar into his coffee. “I don’t want you locked up for someone else’s crimes, that’s for damn sure.”

Bucky’s eyes narrow. “They’re my crimes. You’re not protecting me, Captain. I’d feel better if you weren’t so disgusted that you have to excuse my own existence.”

Steve relaxes his jaw. “If I’m disgusted, it’s by what was done _to_ you. I let you fall, Buck. I can never make that up to you.” 

The Winter Soldier leans forward. “Sergeant Barnes never blamed you. But they told him you were dead. It was a big story, of course. There were newspapers, newsreels; authentic, not doctored. He didn’t want to believe, but it wasn’t Hydra lies. Everyone thought you were dead. It’s easier to break someone who has nothing to hold onto.”

“Please,” Steve says. “Stop.”

The Winter Soldier hisses, and maybe it’s actually something in Russian, Steve can’t tell, and he doesn’t understand why Bucky’s sneering. It’s a new expression, something he’s never seen on Bucky’s face before.

Nora brings their food over and awkwardly fits both plates in front of Steve. He’s not hungry any more, but he eats the food viciously; it’s all gone in less than five minutes. That is what finally calls attention to them; people seem astounded by how much, and how quickly, this man can eat. Bucky doesn’t drink any more coffee, and they don’t speak. Steve leaves cash, not forgetting his usual generous tip, but he doesn’t get pie like he was planning.

It’s not snowing any more and the clouds have disappeared. The sun is starting to sink in the sky, and the snow that’s not filthy or cast in shadow glows with the fading golden light. Steve has to backtrack when he hears the sounds of a scuffle and turns, realizing that Bucky has disappeared down a side alley. What he finds is the Winter Soldier dispassionately rifling through the pockets of a corpse. 

“Hydra,” he says tersely, flicking something at Steve. It’s a throwaway phone.

“Were they following you or me?”

“Me,” Bucky says. “They would happily kill Captain America, but I think they hope to reclaim me first, do a wipe, and send the Winter Soldier after you.”

“I couldn’t sense this guy following us at all.”

“You’re not Spider-man. Some of them, I trained. They should be better.”

Bucky’s clinical tone gives Steve an idea for a different approach. “What’s your mission right now?”

Bucky looks at him sideways. “My mission?”

“What are you trying to do? Can I help you?”

After a moment of earnest thought, the response is, “Next time, kill me. If I come for you, kill me.”

“Buck, I’m never going to be able to do that.”

“I’ve told the Black Widow. She understands. You can call her.”

“Thanks for the warning, I won’t.”

“I’m trying – I’m trying to tell you,” Bucky says, “You’re important to me. Don’t make me talk about it.” He eyes the corpse and says, “Let us go.”

They walk to the subway and the Steve can’t tell if the crowd makes Bucky irritable, but he leans back against the wall and keeps his eyes closed until Steve touches his hand lightly, saying, “Our stop.” They walk back to the Tower. The sky has darkened and it’s starting to snow again, just lightly.

In the elevator, Bucky says, “I’m going to sleep. I’ll give you the files, but Natasha will be mad if you burn something we worked so hard for.” He’s leaning against the wall of the elevator as well, and Steve wonders how tired he actually is and why he didn’t complain during their walk. “Or maybe she’ll understand,” Bucky adds, mouth quirking up in a small smile.

There’s Christmas music playing, of course. _‘Cause no matter how far away you roam, when you pine for the sunshine of a friendly face, for the holidays you can’t beat home sweet home._

⎯⎯⎯⎯

_I have been ready at your hand,_

_To grant whatever you would crave,_

_I have wagered both life and land,_

_Your love and good-will for to have_

⎯⎯⎯⎯

He gives the phone to Tony to take apart, trace, whatever it is that billionaire geniuses do. Steve has the files from Bucky; he goes to his room and sits at his desk, a vintage roll top that he never could have afforded in his day. He does some sketching here, occasionally writes letters. It’s where he looked at the file about Bucky from Natasha, too. When he looks up from whatever he’s doing, he’s facing a stunning view of midtown Manhattan.

Steve can’t focus on the file; he’s not in the mood to go through his meticulous, painfully slow translation process, for one thing, and for another, Jarvis did some kind of medical scan and reported that James Buchanan Barnes shows signs of malnutrition, elevated cortisol levels, and some other things that basically boil down to: he’s not taking care of himself. 

Steve tries to think about things that Bucky used to eat, things that were special treats for them way back when. He remembers eating Cracker Jack at baseball games, C-Rations across Europe (not that anyone with a sense of taste is yearning for C-rats). What would those things mean to Bucky now? Anything? Nothing? Perhaps he’d prefer borscht or pirozhki. Maybe he'd like MREs, if he's really on about eating "efficiently." Something to ask him when he wakes.

Bucky _was_ up, briefly, drank a glass of milk, got the chills and wanted to lie down again; the whole time, Steve following him, waiting for – well, he doesn’t know what. He put a glass of water by Bucky’s bed, and some shortbread biscuits in a little tin, and a note to ask if there’s anything else he can do, anything at all.

Then Steve settles into bed as well, reading _Krazy Cat_ and _The Addams Family_ and _The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin_ , just to do something mindless while he waits for Bucky to wake. It grows darker outside and he flips the lamp by his bed on. He does some push-ups and stretches that are supposed to increase his flexibility. He dozes for a while, half-aware of his room in his dreams, which are hazy and senseless. He wakes up with dry eyes and hunger pangs. He makes three grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup and takes it back to his room, thinking about how long he will live and how much of that will be spent just killing time.

He’s dipping his second sandwich into the soup when the door between their rooms opens and Bucky peers in, looking intently at Steve’s food. Steve says, “You’re awake!” and Bucky prowls over, focused still on Steve’s dinner.

“Do you want my last sandwich?” Steve offers.

“Can I?” Bucky asks, licking his lips.

“Of course,” Steve says, nudging his plate towards Bucky. “I can make more, and some soup for you, if you’d like.”

Bucky looks over his shoulder. “Are you testing me?”

“Go ahead, eat something. You haven’t eaten in days, Buck." 

Bucky hunches down and tears into the grilled cheese, ripping chunks off and stuffing them into his mouth, chewing and swallowing as quickly as he can. When he’s finished, he dabs at the crumbs on his face and then licks them off his greasy fingers. His eyes keep darting to Steve. When Bucky’s quite completely done, Steve stands up from his little sofa, picking up the plate and bowl, and motions for Bucky to follow him.

The Tower is dark and quiet, there’s no music playing now. Steve gets out the bread and cheese, butter, cans of soup, a pot and a pan, and he gets to work. Steve’s mother used to make this for them after school. Steve was always neat and prim, even if he ate too quickly and burned his tongue; Bucky was more likely to drop soup onto his shirt, and then Steve’s mother would cluck her tongue and dab at it with a wet rag, and he got crumbs on the table and kicked his legs while he ate. Bucky made it for Steve when she was gone (well, as best they could with whatever they could scrounge). He was still kind of a messy eater, and pushy, always telling Steve to eat more.

Steve steals a glance at Bucky and wishes that there is a right thing to do and he knew it. Somewhere along their short walk, Bucky seems to have settled into his skin. He’s leaning against the counter, arms crossed, cool and collected again. “Barnes thinks you’re a ghost,” he says.

Steve looks over again, brows furrowed. “Huh?”

“He doesn’t understand that he’s here and you’re here.” He rubs his eyes. He leans forward and sets his elbows on the counter, clasped hands a rest for his chin. He watches Steve carefully, which makes Steve feel kind of nervous.

When Steve hands him a plate, he asks, “Didn’t we used to eat this a lot?”

And Steve says, “Yeah, we did,” and that Bucky better not make a mess like he used to do. It feels like flirting when Steve says that next time Bucky should cook, he was always better at it.

Bucky says he will and makes a joke about Steve burning everything, and it still feels like flirting.

Bucky cooked and Steve cleaned, because Steve did burn things. A lot. And when Steve was sick, Bucky did everything, and he took care of Steve, and he worried about getting home when he was away at work. It’s difficult for Steve to swallow, suddenly. He’s wondering, in a way that he has not ever allowed himself before, what it was that bound Bucky to Steve.

They’re eating together, hushed. It’s not _not_ companionable. The building is silent after hours. Outside, there’s still plenty of light in the city. If they were closer to the ground, they could hear the sound of traffic. By the windows, it gets colder. He looks at Bucky, at the shape of his nose and how he looks different with long hair and stubble from days of sleeping and not shaving; his broad shoulders, his jaw, the metal arm. Steve thinks… what?

Bucky looks up and catches his eye and smiles.

⎯⎯⎯⎯

_Christmas and New Years will find you home_

_There’ll be no more sorrow, no grief and pain_

⎯⎯⎯⎯

Tony’s squeezed some intel out of the phone, which he has now somehow expanded into one of his three-dimensional floating computer magic images, displaying a constellation of faces and tiny, scrolling text -- connections that Tony dug up, he informs them, with a very advanced search of public and private social media as well as government databases that he really shouldn't have access to. In short, wizardry.

Bucky wants to go by himself, but Steve says absolutely not. They’re sitting in one of the team meeting rooms, and it feels so empty with only Steve and Bucky and Tony and Bruce. Bruce doesn’t want the Hulk to get involved, and neither does anyone else, really, and Tony’s got his own thing going on, so it comes down to Bucky saying that he should go by himself and Steve not understanding that at all.

There’s a moment Steve misses where Tony’s about to say something quippy and Bruce puts his hand on Tony’s shoulder and tilts his head to the door.

“I fight better alone,” Bucky says, glowering.

“We were an excellent team,” Steve says.

“You’re not used to how I fight now.”

“I can adapt.”

“I’d rather you didn’t.”

“Why?”

“I don’t need backup,” Bucky says.

“The Winter Soldier had goons.”

Bucky pinches the bridge of his nose. “The Asset took orders. I don’t. I fight alone.”

“I can follow you. I’ll be there whether you want me or not, so let’s just accept it and move on.”

 Bucky quits pacing and snaps, “Fine.”

 Steve thinks, did you not want us to find this information? Why did you give me the phone?

 Bucky says, “It might be a trap.”

 Steve says, “You think I hadn’t already thought of that?”

They’re still bickering on their way to a location Tony pinned, a little bar in Clinton Hill. Steve feels a bit strange, not certain what role he’s playing, un-costumed but heavily bundled up; he can’t tell if he’s supposed to be a superhero or a PI or just John Q Public, along to get in Bucky’s way. Bucky insisted that he not bring the shield, because it would be conspicuous. It feels sort of like the Winter Soldier could be setting him up, and sort of like they’re back in the days when Bucky thought Steve couldn’t fight his way out of a paper bag. It's really a fifty-fifty toss-up for which one Steve hates more.

They park near enough, in a spot Bucky thinks they can get out easy if they have to book it. It’s a small bar, but crowded. They go around to the dumpsters out back and Bucky lights a cigarette. They’re out there in the cold for a while, and Steve’s starting to think he’s not a fan of the plan when finally a guy comes out hauling a big trash bag. He throws it in the dumpster and turns around to find himself nose to nose with Bucky, who says, “У Вас есть задание?”

The guy jumps back and says, “What the fuck?”

“Hydra?” Bucky inquires. The guy squints, looking from Bucky to Steve and back.

“Your buddy on something?” the guy says, looking askance at Steve, and then says to Bucky, “You wanna back off, bro?”

All of a sudden Bucky’s arm’s around the guy’s neck in the same way that Steve is always choking Bucky, that little film reel that's come unspooled. It takes only a few seconds for the guy to lose consciousness, and Bucky gently places the slumped body against the building, saying, “Прости, пожалуйста.” Then he gives Steve a kind of pained look and says, “He’ll be fine. But, if we go in and they’re Hydra, you know I’ll kill them.”

“We killed Nazis, Buck,” Steve says. “We’re soldiers.”

Bucky cocks his head and says, “Sometimes I want to kiss you,” and then he slips into the door the guy left open.

It takes Steve a minute to shut his mouth, but when he follows, it’s down a narrow hallway leading into a small kitchen. There is a man with a gun aimed at Bucky. Steve ducks back into the hallway, hoping he’s escaped notice.

“Hail Hydra,” Bucky exclaims, snapping off a sharp salute with his metal arm.

It turns Steve’s stomach and doesn’t convince the man to drop the gun – he calls something out in what might be Russian (Bucky later says, “Romanian,” like he can’t believe Steve didn’t know, “it sounds more like Italian”). Steve can hear, faintly, chairs scraping against the ground, and then footsteps, running, several pairs of feet on stairs, and the cellar doors in the corner burst open.

While all of that is happening, Bucky does an acrobatic maneuver, closing the distance between him and the man with the gun, and, in an almost gentle motion, he puts a hand on top of the gun, pushing it toward the floor. His punch is brutal in comparison, a solid, jarring impact from his metal hand on the joint beneath the man’s ear; the man’s jaw hangs disturbingly crookedly, certainly dislocated, and the man seems too shocked to react when Bucky takes his gun.

It all happens so quickly that Steve can barely follow, and then the other agents have opened fire on Bucky, shooting also the body of their comrade. Bucky deflects some of the bullets with his arm. One of them is covering his doorway, but Steve still barrels into the room, desperately missing his shield. There are three Hydra agents. The other two turn to look at Steve and a bullet zings past his ear, and then Bucky shoots one of them in the throat, one of them in the forehead, and the last in both knees. The last one collapses, moaning. The one with the throat injury he roundhouse kicks and shoots again, in the heart. There is a lot of blood, some brain matter. Bucky is standing on the last living agent’s hand, which elicits more howling but certainly prevents him from shooting anyone. Bucky kicks the gun away and looks at Steve and growls, “Why the _fuck_ did you come in? I told you I work better alone. You could have gotten hurt.”

“You’re bleeding,” Steve says.

“I’ve been shot,” Bucky agrees. “I will survive.” He still looks mad.

“I’m going to argue with you later,” Steve says, “When we know that for sure.”

And then, kind of without thinking, he puts a hand on the back of Bucky’s neck and leans in, and Bucky almost lunges into the kiss, hot and hungry.

“Damn,” Steve says, when they separate, trying to read in Bucky’s eyes what does he think about _that_ , but it’s obvious when Bucky kisses him again, crushingly, pressing him back against the counter.

“Quit bleeding on me,” Steve says, fingers tangled in Bucky’s hair.

⎯⎯⎯⎯

Bucky survives.

They call Tony, who sends an Iron Man suit over to scope out the basement in case some other Hydra goons are nearby and have instructions to torch it. There isn’t much, but it’s enough to stop Fury’s tirade about cleaning up other people’s dirty doings. He even has someone to interrogate!

“That was a mess,” Steve says. “Next time we’ll do better.”

“Next time?” Bucky’s propped up on several pillows. He heals quickly, although not as quickly as Steve. Before he got stitches he asked to have some old injuries looked at, so the doctor dug some other shrapnel out and stitched everything up cleanly, and now Bucky is enjoying breakfast in bed. “I work alone, американский.”

Steve throws his hands up. “You were born in Brooklyn, you commie bastard.”

“And don’t you fucking forget it,” Bucky agrees before jamming three layers of Belgian waffle into his mouth all at once.

“Some tough guy,” Steve mock-scoffs.

He has to lick some syrup off of Bucky’s chin, later, and they fall asleep on the bed together, which is far too small for two grown men, especially when one of them is Steve Rogers. Later, Bucky starts twitching in his sleep, face pinched, teeth grinding, which wakes Steve who wakes Bucky, who startles and almost falls off. “I’m here,” Steve says, holding onto him, and Bucky goes “me too,” and they both slip back into a peaceful slumber.

⎯⎯⎯⎯

Steve has been kind of, like, elated for a few days. In fact, he’s caught himself humming along with the Christmas music a few times. Everything is the same, same problems, same nightmares, same world, except something makes sense, finally. They’re home.

**Author's Note:**

> Songs: I'll Be Home for Christmas, Bing Crosby; Joy to the World; I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas; Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas; It Came Upon a Midnight Clear; Greensleeves; Please Come Home for Christmas
> 
> Russian (which I don't speak so maybe I am entirely off base, oh my goodness):  
> Мы вас похороним! --- "We will bury you," Nikita Khrushchev to the West; Это пиздец --- this is fucked up; У Вас есть задание? --- do you have a job/what's your mission; Прости, пожалуйста --- please forgive me; американский --- American
> 
> a lot of Christmas music is kind of sad??? initially I thought this story would be much more gloomy, it is quite different from my expectations. I also know that a lot of people have written about these crazy kids working things out much more creatively and with more beautiful prose than I could even dream of, so. somehow I'm still happy with how it turned out. thanks for reading :)


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